So Sue Me

"No, I won't condemn anyone for putting ketchup on a hot dog. This is the land of the free. And if someone wants to put ketchup on a hot dog and actually eat the awful thing, that is their right. It is also their right to put mayo or chocolate syrup or toenail clippings or cat hair on a hot dog. Sure, it would be disgusting and perverted, and they would be shaming themselves and their loved ones. But under our system of government, it is their right to be barbarians."

—Mike Royko, Chicago Tribune, Nov. 21, 1995

Mike Royko was wrong. He resorted to histrionics and perpetuated our city's most absurd axiom — that Chicagoans should never put ketchup on a hot dog.

Don't believe it for a second.

Life is easier to comprehend when we cast a hero and a villain. Somewhere in our city's history, ketchup — a condiment, let's not forget — became anathema, a symbol of treason and everything unholy. Few foods this uncontroversial provoke such antipathy. True, there's a certain tongue-in-cheekiness to our hyperbolic aversion, but repeat something enough times and faux conviction becomes ingrained truth.

How did we get this way?

Several years back, Vienna Beef executive Bob Schwartz published the definitive account of Chicago's love affair with hot dogs, called "Never Put Ketchup on a Hot Dog." The book was inspired by a visit to Herm's Palace in Skokie, when Schwartz's 5-year-old granddaughter Edie made — with the certitude of someone much wiser — the statement that would become the book's title.

"I do give other kids a pass" when it comes to putting ketchup on a hot dog, Schwartz said. "I tell their parents, 'Maybe they'll grow out of it, this affliction.'"

Schwartz theorized that Chicago's aversion to ketchup dates back nearly a century, when the "dragged-through-the-garden" style of hot dogs made additional condiments unnecessary.

"A sliced tomato augments," Schwartz said. "Ketchup detracts."

There's a sign beneath the menu board at West Side hot dog vendor Jimmy's Red Hots, one that has been in place since the stand opened 57 years ago. A ketchup bottle is crossed out, and below it: "NO KETCHUP! NEVER, EVER, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT." The ban even extends to the french fries, hand-cut twice a day.

"Not a drop of it in our place; don't wanna take away from the freshness of the potatoes," one cook said. Staff members wear T-shirts with variations on the theme, including Clint Eastwood's line from "Sudden Impact," when Dirty Harry says: "Nobody, I mean nobody, puts ketchup on a hot dog."

Co-owner Rosemarie Faruggia was 6 when her grandpa Jimmy explained ketchup's supposed origins. He claimed that during wartime, ketchup's acidity kept perishable meats from going rotten, and covered up the taste if it did go bad. From that day forward, Faruggia became a ketchup apostate.

Though Jimmy's Red Hots has embraced the "No Ketchup" rule with good humor, Rosemarie Faruggia's stance isn't one of outright opposition. She has no problem if you decide, bless your heart, to squirt some on a Ball Park frank.

"If you're using good ingredients, you're covering up the natural taste," she said. "It's like getting a rib-eye at a steakhouse and pouring a whole bottle of Worcestershire sauce over that beautiful cut of meat."

You won't find the red stuff at River Grove's legendary Gene & Jude's, either. Sensing a demand in the market, the BP convenience store next door prominently displays Heinz ketchup for $2.39. Along the top railing, 14-ounce squeeze bottles are lined up in a row. At aMcDonald's connected to the convenience store, enough people have asked for ketchup to go that management posted a sign: "Ketchup packet for Gene & Jude's customers, 20 cents."

There is validity in the assertion that ketchup doesn't belong on a Chicago-style hot dog. It is a perfect creation — satisfying all taste senses, texturally varied, aesthetically pleasing, fulfilling large swaths of the food pyramid. Still, a small but boisterous group has sullied ketchup's reputation enough where even touching plain hot dogs is a sin.

They'll argue from a taste perspective: Ketchup's sweetness overpowers meat. Yet it's that sweet-savoriness that makes Kansas City barbecue popular, a style that relies on molasses and tomato-heavy sauces. That same flavor contrast works with cantaloupe and prosciutto. Or chocolate and pretzels. Or french fries dipped into milkshakes.

I'll concede that the sugars in ketchup might not be the ideal accompaniment for hot dogs.

Said Chris Koetke, of Kendall College's School of Culinary Arts: "Ketchup wasn't sweet for most of its past, but nowadays, like a lot of things in the U.S., the sweet meter has been pushed over. So you can doctor up ketchup — throwing in Tabasco gives it spice and acid. It's really a question of balance."

I've learned to trust my matured palate, but the childhood nostalgia is something I can't deny. Watching baseball games with dad, squiggling perfect waves of ketchup and mustard on an all-beef wiener. On corn dogs and hamburgers at summer cookouts. As Tater Tots' perfect dance partner.

"My stance is that it's perverse for any person to tell another what he can and can't put on his food," said my colleague Jeff Ruby, dining critic at Chicago magazine. "That's foodie fascism." For many of us, we know deep inside that ketchup indignation is a facade, a narrative we fulfill for civic pride. We have the Second City complex. We have two baseball teams with one World Series championship between them since Woodrow Wilson was president. We lost the Olympics. Our governors have this thing for committing felonies.

So when out-of-town TV cameras are pointed at us, we play along with the ketchup canard in the name of boosterism, invoking strong words — "never," "blasphemy," "disgusting."

Taste is a matter of taste. Hating ketchup is all right. Making it our collective identity is not. There's so much to love about our fair city, with a multitude of reasons to wave the "We're No. 1!" flag. Clinging stubbornly to a subjective ideal shouldn't be one of them.

Before you write in asking for my head on a platter, allow me to answer the three emails you'll most likely send:

1. Kevin, you were paid off by the Heinz company. (I wasn't.)

2. Kevin, you're not a real Chicagoan. (I wasn't born here, but I've lived in Chicago longer than any other city.)